The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1887-06-02
Does It PAP.

- -SSEE'I~
unusually fatal to distinguished
men, men of wealth and refinement,
who have presumably taken excellent
care Of their health, They have been
men that wear the warmest clothing in
winter, and suitable clothing at all sea-
sons, the best that money could buy.
They have been men who have had the
best of medical science at their conl-
mand, and if it were desired could have
had a professional man of eminence
Watching pulse and respiration con
stantly, The food they have eaten has
been the best that money could pro-
cure, and their drink has been only such
as has been approved by science. They
need never 60 out of their houses when
the weather was too cold or too warm,
their living rooms have been construct
ed scientifically, and their sleeping
rooms contain, only air that is approved
as being pure. They have been ena-
bled to go TO any climate that was
considered better than the one they
lived i'm, and it would seem that no
precaution that could be taken to en-
sure them a long life had been neglect
ed. And, yet some day an unlocked
for draft from an unexpected source
touches them, or malaria that cannot
be seen; enters the system, or a hun
dred diseases that has been guarded
against, ome unbidden, death is the
result, oil of the millions of dollars ev-
er coined being powerless to keep the
breath of life in the body so we'll cared
for.
Every day, nearly, we meet a man on
the streets, who is nearly eighty years
of age. Forty years ago he was a lead
er among men, educated, refined, an
orator, a statesman, a powerful writer,
a nan who, had he been wealthy,
might have been in the senate. and
dead long before this. For thirty years
it is doubtful if this man has drawn a
sober breath, or gone to bed any night
remembering where he got his last
drink. He is shabby and unclean, his
clothes always in condition for the wind
to pass through regardless. In winter
his breast is covered with q. cotton
shirt, with no undershirt, and drawers
he knows no the use of. If you meet
him of a cold day in winter, his old
overcoat is unbuttoned, and he looks
cold, but he goes along talking to him
self. or singing in a low tone. The
free-lunch counter is his banquet, and
the ,quarter given him as he holds out
his hand to an old acquaintance who
knew him when he was clean, sober
and respected, buys him five drinks,
and he gets five banquets. His shoes
are full of holes. and his stockings are
thin, and he looks as though he must
suffer, but he is happy as a king, and
If You draw up to the beer table where
he is %partaking of his schooner, with
the air of q connoisseur sampling a rare
wine, he will entertain you ON any sub
ject YOU may mention, from an opinion
of G~ladstone's course on the coercion
measures, to the Panama canal, and he
will make you laugh, and laugh him.
self, until you will swear he is happy,
though he will not have a nickel when
he goes to bed, and a not get a morn
ing drink till he strikes a friend and
takes up a collection. And yet pneu-
monia never seems to look for him. In
a cold day of winter his shirt may be
unbuttoned so you can see and the
wind can feel his great hairy chest, and
you in a voice that seems to come from
a barrel under the sidewalk, showing
that no air passage in that great pair
of lungs has been. closed by exposure
to the cold. For twenty years wealthy
old friends of the dissipated man have
said he would die within a year, but,
like grandfather's clock, he keeps right
on, proof against disease, beating
whisky year after year. while the rich,
and the careful. die all around him.
That old man is happier with a nickel,
than the wealthiest man on earth, be-
cause he is not worried about the
prospect of sickness OF death. He
seems to court both sickness and death,
and to laugh at the king of terrors,
gets his feet wet rather than avoid a
wet place in the street, and orders an
other schooner of beer, with all of the
dignity that the actor says, loft with
his head, so much for Buckingham
He will never die. Disease may meet
him. and look at him, but disease will
step into the gutter and let him pass,
and disease will go around block and
pitch onto the nice looking. healthy
man, and kill him. Death, it is said,
loves a shining mark, so death will
pass u old friend with the abnormal
appetite for bologna and beer, and
whose appearance would scare crows,
and pick out a man here and there
that there is some credit in killing.
While we would not advocate the
following of the example of the dissi-
pated and dirty old man, does it not
look as though too much care of one
self results fatally oftener than no
care at a~lla-Peck's San.